Liberian official’s Minnesota group home accused of overbilling Medicaid
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A group home in Brooklyn Center run by a government official in Liberia billed the state for numerous services its residents did not need or did not receive, a state investigation found.
The findings released last week stemmed from a Health Department investigation that began two days after MPR News and APM Reports published an extensive report on the owner of the group home company, Sekou Dukuly. Until a month ago, Dukuly acted as the licensed assisted living director for three Golden Touch Health Care group homes in the Twin Cities suburbs, even though he was living in Liberia and serving as managing director of its National Port Authority.
The Health Department investigation, which centered on just one of those group homes, determined it was mathematically impossible for the facility to provide all the services it billed to the state, given the number of employees scheduled to work on many days.
The combined service hours outlined for three of the group home’s four residents totaled at least 45 hours per day in July and August, according to the investigation. But the group home often had just one staff member on site per shift. Even accounting for the manager, who also worked at the company’s two other group homes, the investigation determined the facility could provide at most 32 hours of services to its residents on those days.
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The investigation found many of those services weren’t even necessary. The records show the group home charged Minnesota’s Medicaid program to help residents with socializing, preparing meals, arranging transportation for appointments and monitoring medications. Staff were also supposed to help some residents with bathing, grooming and dressing. But the investigation concluded that the residents were capable of doing many of those activities themselves.
One resident with chronic pain told investigators she did not receive any help from staff, according to the report. She said she prepared her own meals, cleaned her room and managed her own medications. The resident said she had only seen the facility’s nurse “once or twice” in the two to three months she had been living there and that the staff “don’t talk to her.” She also said she complained to an administrator about the lack of activities but didn’t hear back. The report said she met Dukuly only once, when she had to sign paperwork.
Another resident said she managed all her own prescriptions, even though the group home billed the government for three drug-related services: setting up her medications, reminding her to take them and documenting when she did. The group home told investigators it did not have those documents.
The investigators compared care plans for three of the group home residents against records documenting the services they received. Such a comparison was not possible for the fourth resident, because some of his files were unavailable due to a change in case managers.
The group home told the state it provided every required service for the fourth resident, who was recovering from a stroke. But for a 17-day period, staff did not document providing most of those services. The facility’s nurse blamed a technical “glitch,” but investigators pointed out that the group home’s records indicated the resident received some services, including making the bed each morning. The facility also had records for the other three residents, something that “would not indicate a system error,” according to the report.
The group home also billed for at least 13 hours a day of mental health management the residents did not need, according to the report. The state pays a minimum of $26 an hour for mental health management in Health Department-licensed group homes, which would add up to more than $10,000 each month.
“It’s just really concerning,” said Marcus Schmit, the executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. “We really need to think about human services redesign so that the dollars that we're dedicating to vulnerable Minnesotans are actually providing the services that they deserve.”
Dukuly, through his attorney, declined to comment. But Chad Blumenfield, an attorney for Golden Touch Health Care, wrote the conclusions in the state report “omitted critical context.” He said the level of care for residents is supposed to be “flexible.”
“Golden Touch is confident its residents have received the care they need from a strong team of health care professionals with extensive experience,” Blumenfield wrote in an emailed statement.
Over the past decade, Dukuly has had a hand in 24 group homes in the Twin Cities metro area, mostly in the northwest suburbs. During that time, the state paid companies linked to him $36 million dollars, including just over $4 million to Golden Touch Health Care between 2022 and 2024, according to Minnesota Open Checkbook, a state website that tracks government spending.
The Department of Human Services said it would not confirm if those numbers are accurate, and it did not provide detail on the amount Golden Touch Health Care allegedly overbilled the Medicaid program, which it oversees. It also has not fulfilled a public records request for data on state payments to the company filed two months ago.
As part of its initial investigation in August, the Health Department issued an immediate temporary suspension against the three group homes run by Dukuly, including the one in Brooklyn Center where the alleged overbilling was later found. That administrative action allowed the department to begin relocating residents to other facilities. The Health Department is also in the process of finalizing a license revocation.
“We are working more closely together (with other state agencies) than ever to ensure problems are found, bad actors are identified and situations are elevated and addressed quickly,” a Health Department spokesman wrote in a statement.
Meanwhile, the Minnesota Department of Human Services temporarily suspended payments to Golden Touch Health Care, citing “credible allegations of Medicaid fraud.”
“Intentionally billing for services not provided is fraud,” a spokesperson for the Department of Human Services wrote in a statement in response to the Health Department’s investigation.
The spokesperson noted that the Human Services Department is still withholding payments from Golden Touch, but that “is not a final determination that fraud has been found.” If the department does conclude fraud was committed, it can seek to terminate Golden Touch from Medicaid, the statement added.
Blumenfield said the state’s payment freeze against the company is unfounded.
According to documents Blumenfield provided, the Department of Human Services justified withholding payments by pointing not to Dukuly, but to Golden Touch Health Care’s co-founder, Emmanuel Williams. According to the documents, the state is currently investigating allegations that another company owned by Williams, Ancora Healthcare, billed for services it did not provide between August 2023 and September 2025. Blumenfield also provided documents showing Williams sold his ownership share in Golden Touch Health Care to Dukuly in 2022.
“We have provided this information to DHS, but DHS has refused to lift the payment suspension,” Blumenfield wrote in an email. “This is manifestly unfair.”
Williams did not respond to requests for comment. Public records indicate he and Dukuly still have financial ties. Dukuly owns a property where Ancora is licensed to provide community support services, but Blumenfield said Dukuly never had an ownership stake or any other role in the company itself.
